Visit reveals traditions of Cokeburg to Croatian reporter By Lada Kalmeta COKEBURG – "I'm crying, my dear mother ... I'm crying because he first kissed me, but then he left me ..." Tens of voices sing this song loudly and emotionally in this little Washington County town. The song is written in the Croatian language and they sing it in Croatian, but they don't understand a single word. People from Cokeburg sing hundreds of Croatian songs, and during every performance they seem to understand perfectly every word they sing, but it is not so. "They wrote down words of every song and they learned it by heart. But they never ask for the meaning of those words. They just sing. They love it," says Marlene Luketich-Kochis, who leads this Cokeburg group of singers. Members of the group don't only sing, they perform their ethnic dance and play instruments called "tamburitza." The word tamburitza is Croatian; there is no English translation for it, as tamburitza was invented in Croatia and brought to the United States almost two centuries ago. Immigrants left the coal towns in this area after all the coal was mined. By 1950, all coal mines in Cokeburg were already closed, but this town, inhabitated by Croatian immigrants and their descendants, still exists. People didn't leave Cokeburg. Now, 705 inhabitants live there, and the average age of residents is 42, which proves that many young people with children have made the decision to stay here. Why is it not the case in any other coal towns? If we say that people in Cokeburg carry on old Croatian traditions by playing tamburitza and singing old national songs, we still haven't reached the only real reason why they still populate Cokeburg. The fact is that they maintain customs which in Croatia are already forgotten. They are the only group of Croatians in the whole world who keep certain rituals, particularly with respect to St. George. Moreover, because only Cokeburg people keep these traditions, Croatian people from all over the United States – and even from other parts of the world – come to Cokeburg to participate in special ceremonies.

Cokeburg resident Marlene Luketich-Kochis, in back, recently shows her collection of Croatian costumes and dresses to Lada Kalmeta, a Croatian reporter interning with the Observer-Reporter. (STAN DIAMOND/O-R) "This is the reason why Cokeburg is full of life," explains Bernard Luketich, the mayor of Cokeburg. "Croatian people came here before World War I only from one region in Croatia, around the town named Ogulin. There is a village near Ogulin, called Zagorje Ogulinsko, and particularly from that village came the most people in Cokeburg in those early years. Today in Zagorje Ogulinsko in Croatia, everything changed, and they didn't keep old traditional habits. We did, so Cokeburg became the host town for people from all over the U.S. who originally came from Ogulin and from Zagorje, and they are coming to Cokeburg to participate in our common celebration." The celebration of St. George takes place in Cokeburg every year on April 23 and 24, when Americans and Canadians who trace their ancestry to Ogulin, Zagorje Ogulinsko and other Croatian villages come to Cokeburg. The celebration, with old Croatian costumes and old rituals, the procession and the blessing of a special cake in the church cannot be seen anywhere else in the world, not even in Croatia anymore. "In our club in Cokeburg, where we dance, sing and play tamburitza, we have people from 5 to 85. Everybody must learn to play tamburitza and to sing Croatian songs, although they don't know the language. That keeps us together, and that marks us as the only Croatian descendants who take care about tradition, forgotten everywhere. There are other Croatian unions in the U.S., but they don't practice this 'old way,'" Luketich said.

American and Croatian flags fly above the house of Bernard Luketich in Cokeburg. (STAN DIAMOND/O-R) The church in Cokeburg is closed. People from Cokeburg, who are all religious, have to go to the church in Bentleyville, even for the most important celebration when they host hundreds of people in Cokeburg. The church in Cokeburg closed more than 10 years ago, by the order of the bishop in Pittsburgh. There is no school in Cokeburg, either. Children from the borough go to school six miles away. But their tradition is kept so strong in their hearts, and they practice it so diligently in everyday life, that this little "miracle" of a town will continue to exist in spite of those troubles. Cokeburg will continue to host not only hundreds of Croatian descendants from the United States and Canada who love to be a part of Cokeburg's celebrations, but also many other Americans who like their folklore and who also sing Croatian songs perfectly, without understanding one single word. Lada Kalmeta is a reporter for the newspaper Slobodna Dalmacija in Zadar, Croatia. She just wrapped up three weeks at the Observer-Reporter as part of a training program for journalists from southeastern Europe, funded by the U.S. Department of State.